March 26, 2009

"Fondue Dream Come True"

I've dreamed for many years of having homemade Fondue in Switzerland, the real deal, even though we've always enjoyed our Emmi Fondue from Fred Meyer back home, especially at Christmas and New Years, by the lake during hunting season, and whenever it just gets too cold in Alaska.  This fondue evening with Urs, Sandra, Charlene & Chiara, my adopted Swiss family in the village of Worb, just outside Bern, was absolutely beyond my dreams.  The only thing missing was my wife's sweet-cheesy lips to join me, oh yeah, and my stinky-cheese kids!  Enough, on with the pics, I need say no more, ein Bild sagt mehr als tausend Wörte...

 Footnotes on Fondue, for the really bored, or insanely interested like me!:

Fondue is a Swiss communal dish shared at the table in an earthenware pot (caquelon) over a small burner (rechaud). The term comes from the French fondre (to melt) in the past tense fondu (melted) with gender added in the phrase la raclette fondue (the grated Swiss cheese, melted), hence shortened to fondue.[1] A cheese mix in the pot is kept warm as a semi-liquid sauce into which diners use forks to dip bits of food, most often bread. Whilst cheese fondues are the most widely known there are other pot and dipping ingredients. Fondue is most often warmed either by an alcohol burner or tealights.